An Unexpected(ly Magical!) Journey
by OxymoronicEpilogue
Summary: Three OCs, expecting a perfectly mundane camping trip, find themselves falling into Middle Earth just in time for "The Hobbit," and take up the task of changing the ending! (SPOILERS!) Kili/OC OR Fili/OC and Thorin/OC (No slash) Rated M for adult language and future violence.
1. Chapter 1

This is my first fanfic, so I really hope people like it! I'd love to see comments and reviews, so feel free to say what you think! I'm still figuring out this site as well, so hopefully things will get better formatted as they go on.

~ Epi

* * *

The day had started out perfectly normal, as far as Annis was concerned. Portals weren't normal, of course, but … everything before that bit was perfectly normal. Mostly. Three girls, best friends since gradeschool, had finally taken it upon themselves to travel to New Zealand for a semester. They wanted to go to the place that housed their largest (mostly shared) obsession – the Lord of the Rings. And to make that happen, they had decided to go camping. Now, only two of the girls were really interested because of the films. Lucia Annis and Marie-Catlyn Biatte had always been in love with the stories, while Kaitlyn Faber mostly just loved the idea of exploring with her friends. As soon as they got off the plane, they started driving, on the way to the site where they were to meet the woman who would guide them.

"Oh my god this is fantastic!" Annis gushed for what seemed like the umpteenth time. Mari rolled her eyes, sticking her tongue out at the camera her friend was (rather obnoxiously) shoving in her face.

"I'm trying to drive here, y'know!" she said loudly, concentrating on the road as much as she could. "You can take pictures when we get there."

Annis sighed, snapping a quick picture of Kaitlyn sleeping in the back seat before she turned the camera back out the window. "I need references, though," she muttered under her breath. Mari ignored her. They'd spent half of the plane ride and the first hour in the car boring Kaitlyn to death with chatter about "The Hobbit," which had come out three weeks before they left, and contemplating every possible thing that could happen in the next film. Then the conversation had worn out over an hour before they would arrive at the camp site, and the two girls who were still awake began to grow restless.

"I hope I've brought enough shoes …" Annis chirped. "Are you sure I have? I've only got the two pairs, what if my boots get soggy?"

"Then you take them off and pretend to be a hobbit, obviously."

Annis nodded assent, though Mari wasn't paying enough attention to see it, and they drove in silence for about five minutes before Annis got bored. And started talking about anything that came to mind. Again. Mari wondered why she'd agreed to let Kaitlyn sit in the back seat and sleep, instead of helping distract Annis.

"Look! We're about to drive into a huge magical circle of magic … doom … light! Stuff!" Annis shouted, startling Mari out of her distraction. Unfortunately, it didn't help. Mari slammed on the brakes, but the car spiraled into the portal. As the car spun through the light, Kaitlyn woke up just in time for all three of the girls to black out.

* * *

Annis woke up first, pushing her mane of red hair out of her face. The first thought she was able to process was that her shoes felt painfully tight; the second was that the dashboard was strangely far away. And huge. _Weird._ She thought, reaching out blindly to shake Mari. She pulled off her shoes as quickly as she could, then pushed the car door open and stepped out. The feeling of grass under her bare feet shocked her into finally looking down at them, and then she screamed.

"KAITLYN, MARI, WAKE THE FUCK UP SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH MY FEET OH MY GOD." No response.

"GUYS!" she shrieked.

"Good grief, what do you want? My head is killing me …" Kaitlyn muttered, rubbing her eyes as she stuck her head up over the car. "Why are you so short?"

"IF I KNEW DO YOU THINK I WOULD BE FREAKING OUT!"

"Uhm…Your ears look weird too…" Mari added, finally waking up.

Annis's eyes widened and she reached up to touch her ear. Everything seemed normal at first; and then she moved her hand up. The top of her ear was pointed. Like a hobbit's.

"Wait," Annis said as Mari pushed her own hair behind an ear. "Yours are pointy too. Are your feet funky and shit like mine?"

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Mari yelped.

"So…does that mean…"

"I think we might be…"

"Hobbits."

"What are you people talking about? There's nothing wrong with me." Kaitlyn interrupted.

"We may or may not have fallen into Middle Earth and become hobbits. But why would Kaitlyn have stayed the same?" Mari sounded skeptical.

"I think we need to find out. I'm still trying to get over the whole FALLING INTO A FANFICTION thing, though, so let's get our backpacks together and look around. It can't hurt, if we remember where the car is."

"But what if we are in Middle Earth, and those evil things are around?" Kaitlyn said. "Orcs, or whatever?"

"It's daytime, we should be safe. Unless the War of the Ring's happened already. Orcs couldn't stand to be in daylight until Sarumon bred the Uruk-hai, and even then only Uruks could stand the light." Annis was sure she sounded more confident than she felt, and she hoped that was the case.

"And Annis brought that bow, and we've got my machete. It might scare them away, even if none of us can use them," Mari added.

"If we can even carry them! theymight not have shrunk when our clothes and stuff did." Annis pulled her overstuffed backpack out of the backseat and dumped it out on the grass. She replaced the sketchbook, notebook, her chapstick, and a handful of pens and pencils; then she brought the bag to the trunk. "I'm putting on a sports bra too, just in case." As Annis changed her bra under her shirt, Kaitlyn got out of the car to do the same.

By the time Mari finished deciding what to leave in her backpack, Annis had put on what looked like six layers of clothes, and Kaitlyn had done the same. "If this is really Middle Earth you're going to stick out like a sore thumb," Mari nodded at Annis's bright, multi-colored outfit and her toenails, which were painted bright blue.

"Your mom is a sore thumb. And my t-shirt's black at least …" Not that that was much help. The Hunger Games shirt was just as strange as the bright turquoise long-sleeved shirt and the purple tank top Annis had on underneath it. "I don't have any black long sleeved shirts. This was the best I could do. And at least I'll be pretty, instead of boring like Kaitlyn is being!" Kaitlyn stuck her tongue out by way of response; Mari just rolled her eyes and put her black trench coat on over the white shirt she already wore. Her necklace, a replica of Thorin Oakenshield's key, hung over the neck of the shirt.

"At least Kaitlyn is wearing something somewhat normal, like me." Annis ignored Mari, only glancing at Kaitlyn's long sleeved red shirt and the warm brown jacket she wore over it. The only thing that stood out was the blonde's running shoes.

"If we're really going to go wander around in a strange place are you idiots planning to bring food, at least?" Kaitlyn finally spoke up.

"Oh yeah!" Annis chirped as she roughly shoved extra clothes into the bottom of her backpack, keeping the notebooks out of the way.

"I didn't even think about that," Mari laughed nervously. "What should we bring? I know Annis packed trail mix and stuff, but …" she trailed off, looking at the redhead.

"I have beef jerky too. And I'm bringing all the chocolate I can. And apples, and candy canes."

"And water. Don't forget water. I can't believe you thought of chocolate before water," Kaitlyn muttered sarcastically. "And why is chocolate necessary, again?"

"I don't think they have it here, actually," Mari's eyebrows furrowed. "It's never been mentioned, and chocolate isn't a European thing. So they probably don't." The only response was the sound of Annis shoving three bags of Dove chocolate into her backpack. Kaitlyn joined her.

"What else do we need?" Mari watched her friends rummaging through the bag.

"Uhm…matches!" Annis shouted, opening the only bag they hadn't gone through. She dumped two large boxes of matches on the ground, followed by three flashlights, soap, tooth brushes, band aids and Neosporin. From another bag she pulled a small whetstone, a coil of leather cord, and a small leather pouch. "I've got a pocket knife for me; did you borrow a couple from what's-his-face? Your friend?" she asked. Mari nodded, grinning as she passed Kaitlyn a knife. "Make sure you don't kill yourself, that should still be pretty sharp."

Kaitlyn pulled her knife open, inspecting the way the blade clicked into place. "How do I close it?" she asked, holding the knife out towards Mari.

"Hold down this little silver bit in the side, then close it slowly," she showed her friend, then turned to Annis.

"Do we have enough stuff? What else can you think of? Anything?" Mari was still distracted, trying to think of anything else they may have forgotten.

"I think so. I can't think of anything else, so I hope so," Annis answered.

* * *

Before long, the three girls were ready to go. Annis wore a quiver of arrows, a combination of red-fletched hunting broadheads and pink-fletched target points, on a belt around her hips. Her compound bow hung by her side, hooked into a sling that hung diagonally across her body under her backpack straps. Kaitlyn wore the car's key on a loop of leather, tucked under her shirt, and the hatchet they'd brought for splitting wood hung by her side. Mari carried her machete on her left hip, and the coil of twine on her right.

"Our world is behind us, and Middle Earth – we hope! – ahead!" Annis shouted gleefully, following Mari and Kaitlyn. And the three set off.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you so much for the reviews and the follows, everyone! I hope you like this next chapter, I've finally been able to start introducing the characters from the book. We'll see more one on one time with them later, when the dwarves are in less of a cluster. Also, I might change one of the parts from a Kili/OC to a Fili/OC. I just feel like Fili isn't getting enough love here on FF. Anyway, tell me what you think of the idea! None of the romance-y stuff will be happening for a while, but I'd love some opinions!

* * *

By the time Annis and her friends reached civilization, the afternoon sun was low in the sky and their feet ached beyond belief. By the time they found someone to ask where they were, they felt about ready to collapse. The first thing they noticed was that they were in the Shire, or something like it. While Annis explained to Kaitlyn what they were looking for, Mari actually paid attention; before her chattering friends even noticed she wasn't next to them she had approached a hobbit who stood alone in his garden.

"Hey. Excuse me?" Mari asked hesitantly. Annis noted that the hobbit was eyeing the friends' weapons suspiciously. "Could you tell us where we are?"

"Uhm…You're in the Shire …" he responded. He looked like he might turn and run at any moment.

"Yeah, we know that much!" Annis laughed. "We're just visiting some family, my sister and I. I'm Annis, and this is Mari," she gestured at the blonde hobbit. "Kaitlyn here is our guide."

"Oh. Oh, I see." He nodded, but didn't take his eyes off of the machete at Mari's side. "Who might you be looking for?" He glanced up at the blonde hobbit's face.

"Uh, the Bagginses. That's all our parents knew, they haven't spoken to any of the relatives here for some time."

"Yeah," Annis added, glancing back up at Kaitlyn, "We live out by Bree."

"I see," the hobbit asked for no explanation outright, but he clearly wanted one. "I'm called the Gaffer, if you have any more questions while you're visiting; Mr. Bilbo Baggins can be found right down the way. Green door, with steps leading up to it. Down the path on the left." The Gaffer waved kindly, smiling, but stepped back inside quickly as soon as Annis and her friends said thanks and turned to leave. The day was already growing late, and nobody wanted to be outside if they could avoid it. So Annis really hoped they would find Bag End soon, and get there in good time to impose on Bilbo for supper.

While the redhead was too busy lost in thought to notice the scenery, let alone look for the entrance to Bag End, her friends were nowhere near distracted. They chatted quietly, trying to figure out what they would do after they found Bilbo, until Kaitlyn shouted, "There it is, I think!" She had spotted a glowing blue mark on one of the doors. They had nearly passed it in their distraction, and Annis took a moment to see it; it took Kaitlyn pointing her in the right direction to find it.

"About time, too, my feet are killing me," Annis started making her way towards the house before Mari grabbed her.

"Wait, Annis," she held her friend's arm tightly, keeping her from breaking free and heading for the door. Annis sighed, but let Mari continue, "We have to think about this. Maybe we shouldn't talk to them, we don't want to mess things up by interfering."

"What? No, we have to save Thorin and Fili and Kili."

"Wait, what are we talking about?" Kaitlyn already knew what happened at the end of 'The Hobbit,' but Annis hadn't told her about her hope to change the end.

"She wants to try and change the ending of the book by going on a dangerous and potentially deadly mission."

"Look, we have an opportunity here!" Annis said, plopping down at the base of the hill that Bag End was built into. Kaitlyn sighed, glancing at Mari.

"I'm going, even if you guys don't want to," it had taken about thirty seconds for Annis to start talking again. "Time can be rewritten, after all."

"But if we try and change things we might change them too soon. Everything could go wrong!" Mari was getting frustrated. "And I'm not too fond of the idea of getting killed, either!"

"No, think about it this way," Annis said as calmly as she could, "It's like that episode of Doctor Who where the Doctor and Rose and Mickey fell into an alternate reality where the cybermen were taking over and whatever and Mickey was a rebel and Rose's parents had never split up and her father never died and she had never been born. If we change stuff here it won't affect the original 'Hobbit' time stream where Thorin and the others die. As long as we don't change anything up to then, it'll be fine." Mari furrowed her eyebrows, but seemed like she might lean in favor of going on the quest. Annis pressed on, "And besides, when will we ever have an opportunity like this again? Are you seriously going to pass up a QUEST so you can sit around in the Shire doing nothing?!"

"I see that, but it's dangerous!" Mari looked at Kaitlyn, hoping for support.

"What are you looking at me for?!" Kaitlyn sat down in front of Annis. "I don't care what we do, just figure something out or whatever."

Mari finally sat down next to Annis, leaning back to lie against the hill just as Annis leaned forward to hug her knees and closed her eyes.

"So what're we gonna do?" Mari muttered.

"I think we should talk to Gandalf. He's our best shot at getting home anyhow, since he's a wizard and everything." And, speak of the devil, Gandalf had arrived. He was standing at the door with a herd of dwarves in front of him.

"But just telling him we could change the future."

"Just by being here we change it! And Gandalf's not an idiot; he'll know that he can't tell the dwarves because it'll change things. But we need his help to get home. And why not go on a quest while we're at it?"

Mari sighed dramatically. "Fine, we'll talk to him. But only talk! And we only tell him things that won't change how things happen, and only if he swears he won't say anything to the dwarves or let what we tell him change stuff."

"Good. Now let's go," she said.

Kaitlyn steered the hobbits forward. When they got to the door, Annis took the job of knocking – or, rather, kicking the door lightly until someone answered. Kaitlyn made the introductions, asking the dwarf who answered the door – Ori - to fetch Gandalf; Mari did her best to explain the situation without any of the non-wizards in Bag End overhearing. When she finished, Annis was looking peeved by Mari's reluctance to ask to go on the quest, and Kaitlyn seemed shocked that Annis hadn't interrupted to that effect yet.

"You've been changed into hobbits," the grey wizard looked down at Mari, one eyebrow slightly higher than the other.

"Yes," the apparent spokes-hobbit kept her voice steady.

"And the world you come from knows about Middle Earth, but believes it to be a figment of imagination?"

"Yep."

"And you claim to know the future of this world as well?"

"Isn't that what we're saying?!" Annis barely finished the sentence before Mari elbowed her.

"If you know the future, then do tell me what will come of this adventure." Gandalf looked at Mari expectantly, but Annis roughly elbowed her as she opened her mouth to tell him.

"Mari, don't tell him anything. If he knows, he might try and change things wrong; we need to keep things happening as they're meant to."

"What? Don't be ridiculous, I know that!"

"Sorry," Annis looked almost sheepish. "Some of the things that happen on this journey will directly influence the future of Middle Earth. We have to make sure it stays the same." All it took was a look from Annis and Mari nodded agreement.

Turning to Gandalf, Mari looked him straight in the eye and said, "If we tell you what happens, will you swear on whatever it is wizards swear on that you'll let things play out as they're meant to, or at least how they would in the books?"

"I shall, if you prove to be telling the truth. Tell me something that my knowing will not affect the outcome of the dwarves' quest."  
Annis answered before either of her friends could even think of beginning: "When Thorin gets here, to Bag End? He'll complain that he couldn't find Bag End – he got lost twice before he saw your mark. Then he made a series of snarky comments about Bilbo looking more like a grocer than a burglar and ignored him for like half of the night until it was time to say that Bilbo was unfit and they shouldn't bother trying to get him to sign the contract or whatever because he'll never agree anyhow." She grinned toothily, and was the first to follow Gandalf when he nodded and led them inside.

Right into the most chaotic scene they had ever witnessed. There were dwarves everywhere. Or at least it seemed that way to Annis; they were stomping all over the place, yelling at each other and carrying massive amounts of food towards the center of the house. Including a cask. Carried by Fili and Kili. When Annis noticed, she tapped Mari on the shoulder, whispering, "Dude, look, it's them!"

"And Bofur's there!" Mari grinned back, her reluctance to interfere with the dwarves giving out to excitement meeting them. "This is so cool."

"I might die, Mari. Help me. I can't handle the awesome."

"Guys, stop freaking out. It's a bunch of short people with beards." Unfortunately Kaitlyn wasn't as quiet as she meant to be, and she ended up on the receiving end of a couple of good, suspicious, dwarfish glares before everyone who'd noticed was busy with food again. Within a minute of getting into the front room, Gandalf had gotten Bilbo to introduce himself to the girls, told him their names, and disappeared into the throng of dwarves (where he was offered tea by a very polite Dori).

"God only knows how he manages to disappear in a herd of people that're like two feet tall," Annis grinned at Kaitlyn and Mari, then turned to Bilbo. "I'm –"

"Lucia Annis, Gandalf said your name was? And Marie-Catlyn Biatte, and Kaitlyn Faber." He nodded to each in turn, extending a hand to shake.

"I prefer to be called Mari, personally. And she's Annis." The blonde hobbit smiled, "But Kaitlyn's still Kaitlyn!"

"Yeah," Annis added, "I think my parents must've drunk or something when they named me. Though I could've done worse, I suppose."

"Well, anyway. I hope you enjoy this company more than I'm able to. There won't be anything left in my cupboard by the time this bunch finishes!"

"I'm sure we will, and we'll do our best to help keep them in line, if we can." As far as Annis knew, Mari was lying when she said that they'd try and keep the dwarves in line; they no better could than they could crown Smeagol king of Gondor. But it seemed to comfort Bilbo, so instead of calling Mari out she just said, "For now, though, we'd best get back to Gandalf. Thank you again, it's lovely to meet you! Coming, Kaitlyn?"

"No, no. I'll just – ah, Bilbo? Would you mind if I took a look at your bookshelf over there?" Kaitlyn pointed towards a small set in the sitting room. "I hate loud noises, and I think they'll only get worse with Mari and Annis joining the group."

"Ah, I suppose that would be alright. Do be careful with them, though, most of them were my, my mother's …" he trailed off, waving in the general direction of the book case as he rushed off to try and herd back a dwarf that was making towards the table with a plate of tomatoes.

At the table, meanwhile, Annis had shoved Mari into an empty seat by the door – where she knew Thorin would sit when he arrived. And with a suggestive look, she was off into the mix. Finally she shoved past enough dwarves to reach a seat between Fili and … whoever was sitting next to him. Annis honestly had no idea, by this point she was too nervous to care. _Dammit. I was hoping I would get less awkward in Middle Earth, _she thought to herself.

None of the dwarves took notice of them for some time, though; by the time either of the dwarves beside her stopped yelling long enough to address the hobbit, Annis was already nearly waist-deep in food. She barely stopped to yank back her plate when she saw Fili approaching on the table; he wasn't paying much attention to where his feet were.

She was still eating when the dwarves started to clean up, but when she heard Bilbo protest that the knives would be blunted she hurried herself to finish. There was no reason to even bother getting involved in the song they sang when Bofur prompted one; as much as she liked listening to it, she was in no mood to be smacked in the face with a flying plate. Instead she just pushed her plate towards the center of the table, where it was tossed off towards Balin, and sang along quietly, grinning.

"Now then, who's this extra hobbit?! I thought there was only meant to be the one!" someone had shouted. Annis started, but heard Mari's objecting to being called an 'extra' and decided not to speak up yet. Maybe they hadn't noticed her, though how that could be she did not know.

"So I thought at the time." Gandalf smiled, muttering to himself; it was clear to the hobbits at least that he was stalling. And it worked; Gandalf was interrupted by a loud knocking on the door. Thorin had arrived.

Annis shoved her way through the crowd as soon as Gandalf said, "He is here!" She wanted to get to Mari. When she reached the blonde hobbit, Annis grabbed her by the elbow and dragged her back as the dwarves streamed past. "We need Gandalf to know that we're telling the truth before Thorin sees us. You know how nasty he can be," she whispered. A couple of dwarves shot them glances, which Annis promptly ignored.

"I thought you said this place would be easy to find. I lost my way. Twice." Annis giggled as soon as Thorin started speaking, and kept on until Mari elbowed her. "If not for the mark on the door, I never would have."

"What?! There is not mark on that door! I had it painted a week ago!" Bilbo protested.

Gandalf just looked sheepish as he explained that he had, in fact, put a mark on the door himself.

'This is beyond ridiculous,' she mouthed at her friend.

'Stop!' Mari's eyes were wide. She was probably right; if Annis kept on she would start actually laughing, and they'd get caught. But the whole thing was just too funny. _Middle freaking Earth. _Annis thought as she walked over to where her bag rested. _Maybe we can just stay here for a bit, once Gandalf figures out how to get us home. _

The redhead grabbed one of the candy canes out of her bag – luckily only one had broken, so she grabbed one that wasn't defective. When she stood up, she realized that Thorin had finished calling Bilbo a grocer and the dwarves were moving back to the table. Annis caught Gandalf's eye and he nodded, his eyes twinkling in a terrifying way. So she made her most frightened-looking face and scurried past him, back to her original place at the table. Nice and far away from freaky wizards.

When everyone was seated, Gandalf was the first to talk. "Now. As you know, I have been doing my best to aid your company by finding you your burglar. And I am pleased to tell you that I have found another potential addition to our quest. I believe these ladies could be quite helpful, should you choose to accept them. And I advise that you do." At the mention of 'ladies,' Thorin looked up at Gandalf, shocked, and someone – probably Gloin, Annis thought – shouted something about there being more than one.

Gandalf looked around the table; Mari was easy to spot, being only one dwarf away from Thorin himself. "Now, miss Annis?"

"Present!" Annis raised her hand, the long end of the candy cane sticking out of her mouth. "Kaitlyn was reading or something, I'm not sure. Rummaging through Bilbo's desk, maybe."

"Would you stop eating for a minute, Annis?" Mari asked mildly. "We need them to like us," and rolled her eyes.

"And for that I need a candyshank," Annis flourished the sharpened end of the candy cane dramatically.

"Fine, fine. I'll go get Kaitlyn then," Mari rose out of her seat.

"KAITLYN!" Annis bellowed. Her friend's head popped out from behind a doorway. _She must've been lurking like a creep_, Annis thought. "C'mere, Kait. We need to be _impressive._" Sarcasm. Kaitlyn ignored it, taking up position next to Bilbo in the doorway behind Thorin.

"Now, as I said. I recently met these three, and I believe they could contribute to your quest," Gandalf almost looked like he was glaring at Annis. Not something she would have expected from him, reading the books. He had always been more likely to call people 'fool.'

Thorin looked to Gandalf and then Balin. "I see no reason they should come, and less reason than that that I should be made responsible for them."

"But what of the dwarves of the Iron Hills? Will they join us?" Annis thought it was Dori; she could barely tell them apart as it was.

"Dain will not join us. He said this was our task, and ours alone," Thorin seemed disappointed, but unsurprised. Annis suspected he had known when he went to his kin.

"You're going on a quest?" Bilbo was standing awkwardly behind Thorin, and even Kaitlyn seemed amused by the fact that he hadn't grasped what was going on yet.

"Ah, Bilbo, we could use some more light. Would you fetch some?" Gandalf was clearly trying to get rid of him, but Bilbo didn't seem to notice. While he went to fetch a candle, Gandalf presented a piece of parchment, laying it on the table in front of Thorin. The map to the Lonely Mountain, Annis knew. Bilbo looked over Thorin's shoulder to inspect the map for himself, but Annis didn't bother. She knew what the road looked like, if the 'real' Middle Earth was anything like the book or the film.

What she was really interested in was the key that Gandalf pulled out of a pocket at the dwarves' uproar over the thrush (a sign that Smaug's reign would end soon) and the problem of not having a way into the mountain. And, especially, the key that Mari wore around her neck. Thorin hadn't noticed it so far, but Mari's coat also got in the way. The dwarves were more likely to think it a common pendant than a copy of the key to Erebor. Which was good; Annis figured that Thorin would flip shit if he realized that they had a replica of the key _and_ of the map to Erebor.

Unfortunately, the lapse in Thorin's knowledge was not meant to last.

"How came you by this?" Thorin demanded.

"It was given to me by your father, Thrain, for safekeeping. Now I pass it on to you."

And that's when Mari reached up to her own version of the key, hanging around her neck. Annis saw her grab it, and then she saw Thorin glance towards her blonde friend.

"What is that." It wasn't a question. When Mari looked at him, Thorin held her gaze.

"What do you mean?"

"That. Around your neck." Realization dawned on Mari's face.

"Uhm … nothing, it's just a necklace." She tried to slip it under her shirt, but Thorin's hand snaked out and grabbed her wrist. Startled, Mari dropped the pendant, and it fell onto her shirt for all to see.

"Is that … is that another key into Erebor?" Bofur sounded as shocked as the rest of the company looked.

Annis was as startled as they were, but couldn't keep herself from muttering, "Oh, shit."


	3. Chapter 3

As usual, thank you so much for the follows and reviews, and I'm so sorry this took so long! Hopefully the next chapter will come faster, as I started it in the writing of this chapter. I hope you enjoy this, it's more of nothing really happening (unfortunately) but next chapter they'll be setting off and probably reach the trolls.

* * *

"What is the meaning of this?" Gloin's voice rang above the others', even as the table broke out in a veritable riot of shouting. Kaitlyn and Annis looked at Mari for an answer, as she was the one that the dwarves' attention was focused on; when she said nothing, Thorin stepped in.

"Answer the question," his grip on her wrist stayed tight, even as Mari tried to pull her hand away.

"It - it was a gift," Mari glanced at Annis. Thorin's gaze followed, as did the attention of the others. Suddenly finding herself at the center of their attention, Annis (for once) lost the ability to talk. A blush seeped into her face, and she said the first thing that came into her mind.

"Are you stupid, you fucking skank?" Thorin didn't move, but the hand that didn't hold Mari's wrist was clenched into a fist on the table. "It's a fake. A gimmick, meant to look like your fancy quest key. Obviously."

"Yeah, if you just look at it you'll see. It's made of aluminum or something," Kaitlyn added helpfully.

An awkward silence filled the room; most of the dwarves had gone silent when Annis started swearing at their leader, and the rest had quieted down when she said it was a fake.

"Um …" Kili leaned across Fili to whisper at Annis, "what's a skank?"

At the same time, Mari quietly asked, "Can you let me go now?"

The talking, as quiet as it was, ignited another mass argument as everyone tried to make their opinions heard over everyone else. At some point in the melee Annis stood up to scream louder, only to be dragged down by Fili. She smacked him roughly in the head. Pleased by the loud, "Ouch!" that he let out, Annis was the last to notice that Gandalf was playing the ScaryWizard game.

"Cease!" after the first word, the wizard quieted down. "The necklace Miss Biatte wears is of my own creation. A decoy, if you will; I asked her and her friends to hold it openly, lest knowledge of our quest fall into the wrong hands. This way, should the enemy try and take the key they will be sure one of these hobbits has it, she will give it willingly, and you, Thorin, will still have the key that will work."

"Why did you not say this before?" Thorin demanded, the only voice against the silence. Gandalf simply raised his eyebrows, nodding in Mari's direction.

"My wrist, please?" she grinned nervously. Surprisingly (to Annis, at least) Thorin actually assented. To the sound of a head smacking the wooden table. The entire company turned to the disruption. Who was, of course, Annis.

"Sorry about the loss of dramatic tension, but I lost my candyshank. So I have no bullshit tolerance left." She frowned, shaking a pile of shattered candy cane out of her hand and onto the table. The rest was on the floor at Ori's feet, where he'd stepped on it.

"Seriously, Annis?" Kaitlyn raised an eyebrow at her friend.

"What? I'm just saying. Anyway, obviously Gandalf didn't say anything because he wanted to see how Thorin would react to someone else having the key, to see if the fake was good enough to be believable." Gandalf nodded to confirm the lie when Annis finished, and turned back to Thorin to continue the conversation.

As soon as conversation turned back to Erebor and the map, Annis stopped paying attention. Offhandedly, she noticed Fili declare that, "If there's a key, there must be a door!" and responded with an eye roll and a muttered, "Thank you, Captain Obvious!" The comment got her a sideways glance from Ori but nothing else.

Before long, Bilbo was handed his contract.

"Oh, you three," Balin addressed Annis, Mari, and Kaitlyn, "will have to sign the contract as well."

"Laceration … evisceration … incineration?!" Bilbo glanced up from the contract at each word.

"Oh, aye, he'll melt the flesh off your bones in the blink of an eye!" Bofur seemed to be trying to console the hobbit, but Annis wasn't totally buying his good wishes. Bilbo looked ready to vomit.

"You alright?" Mari seemed to be more concerned than Annis was.

"I feel … a bit faint."

"Think furnace with wings," Bofure was the most amusing dwarf Annis had ever seen.

"Definitely need some air," Bilbo looked worse with every passing second.

"Flash of light, searing pain, then poof! You're nothin' more than a pile of ash!" _Good god, Bofur, you're not helping, _Annis thought, glaring at the dwarf.

"Nope." And Bilbo was out.

"Oh, good grief," Mari followed Gandalf to the hobbit's side. Kaitlyn stood near Mari, ready to help if need be; Annis scrambled under the table and past the cluster of laughing dwarves to get to the kitchen.

"Kettle … kett- … AH!" she muttered as she rummaged through the cupboards. Once the kettle was heating on the stove, she set up the search for tea.

"He'll wake up soon enough," said Mari. Annis could practically hear Thorin's disgust from the kitchen.

"And when we have no burglar when we reach the Lonely Mountain I'm sure we'll all be thankful that the hobbit is safe at home, woken from his fainting fit," the dwarf king stated darkly.

"Okay, Snarkmaster, we get that you don't like hobbits or women or anyone else who doesn't have a beard, but it's not like – " Annis's shout was cut off by the sound of the hobbit waking up. "Aah!" she continued, poking her head out of the kitchen. "I'll have tea in a minute!" Annis rushed back to the kettle, which was beginning to scream. Her friends had helped Gandalf set Bilbo up in a chair, which was guarded by the wizard. Thorin and Balin had disappeared, presumably to have their "nobody is a warrior except us but at least they have loyalty but we'll probably all die anyhow" discussion.

Once Annis had handed off the tea to Bilbo, she headed off in search of the living room. Her friends had vanished, so they must be there waiting for the singalong.

Annis sighed as she sat on the couch next to her friends. "D'you think they'll sing the whole song, or just the movie version?" For a moment they ignored her to finish up her own conversation. When they turned to her, she repeated the question.

"I don't know," Kaitlyn glanced at Mari when she answered.

"I think we need to decide if we're going with them before we think about this other stuff." The blonde hobbit had been the most skeptical of the journey when they set off, but Annis thought she'd convinced her friend that they couldn't pass up the chance.

"I am, even if you aren't," Annis said almost bitterly. "We'll never get this chance again, and we've got nothing better to do while we wait for Gandalf to figure out how to get us home."

"But we could die! If we die, we'll never get home!"

"Okay, so don't go. I'm not making either of you," Annis looked pointedly at Kaitlyn, who hadn't said anything yet. "I'm just saying that _I_ am going to go, whether you guys do or not."

"I think we should stick together, though," Kaitlyn finally spoke.

"I appreciate that, but I'm going with Gandalf and the dwarves. What else are we gonna do?" After a moment of thought, she added, "look, why don't we go now, and when we get to Rivendell we can decide whether or not to stay? I've no doubt that Elrond will put us up if Gandalf asks, and we've got a better chance of being able to stay there than here, especially since we don't have any money."

"I guess that makes sense, kind of … " Mari's eyebrows furrowed. "Yeah, I can see that. But we aren't fighting the trolls, or getting involved. And when we get to Rivendell we decide if we go on. And nobody goes past Rivendell alone."

Annis nodded assent and grinned. "I'm gonna go figure myself out, then. See if I can dig out a pair of gloves to keep myself from dying on reins again." She stuck her tongue out briefly as she walked away from her friends.

When Annis got to the neat pile she and her friends had left their bags in, she glanced around suspiciously. The room was empty, so she grabbed her bag and the bow, leaving the quiver with her friends' things. Once she had crept through one of the closed doors to something that looked like a study, she sat down on the floor to dig through her backpack until she found a pair of thin faux leather gloves meant for riding horses.

As soon as she'd slipped them on, she stood up to start practicing with the bow. Or at least see if she could draw it; surprisingly, it drew fairly easily. The string bit at her fingers, but the gloves protected her from any real damage. Just as she was starting to feel satisfied with her ability to draw the bow, if not aim it, she heard someone trying the door.

Annis crouched down and put the bow away, and stood up with her bag hanging from one shoulder and the bow in her hand. It was Bofur who opened the door, looking hesitantly into the room as he greeted her with a nod.

"Don't worry, I haven't turned into a dragon or whatever," Annis smiled, taking a step forward to move past him.

"Gandalf wanted to talk to you and your friends, with Thorin and Balin," he said.

"Oh, alright. Thanks!" her smile widened to a grin. "What about? D'you know? Or is it super secret mystery stuff?"

"I'm … not sure," Bofur looked at her like she was crazy, which Annis ignored.

"Either way, thanks. I'll go find them, if I can," Annis stepped past him, then went in search of Mari and Kaitlyn.

The pair were in a different room than she had left them in, and when she found them Mari was curled on one end of the couch and Kaitlyn was crunched into the smallest armchair she had ever seen.

"So, no Gandalf or Thorin or Balin or … anyone?" Annis asked.

"No, nobody could find you. Gandalf wandered off to talk to Bilbo again, I think, and the others just never showed up. So I guess it'll happen later," Kaitlyn stretched out her legs and continued, "If Mari's awake, that is."

"Of course I'm awake, don't be ridiculous!" the blonde hobbit protested, pushing her head farther into the pillow it rested on.

"Regardless. Whole song; d'you think they'll sing it?" without the distraction of trying to get out of the quest, Mari answered quickly.

"I hope so, though I think it's pretty long …"

"I don't even know it, you know I've never read the books," Kaitlyn added. "Do you?" she looked at Annis skeptically.

"Of course not," Annis scoffed. "Like, I know a bit – I've got it written down in my journal, and whatever. But I only know the movie version of - " Kaitlyn cut her off with a sharp sideways glance. Ori was staring at them. Annis's eyes widened in surprise as she dropped down onto the couch next to Mari. "So, did Bilbo have any good books, Kait?"

"Kind of. Most of them were just history, but they were interesting. Mostly about the Shire, and his family. A lot about whoever-they-are, the Tooks. It was quite nice." The conversation was stopped then by the entrance of the rest of the dwarves. They'd started coming in clumps sometime after Ori arrived, and when they started arriving – first Gloin and Oin, then the rest in pairs until only Thorin and Gandalf had yet to appear – the girls started watching them. They knew what was happening, that the song would start soon.

When the humming finally started, Annis sat up straight and saw her friends do the same. She shot an excited grin at them, barely looking away from the group of dwarves for a second. And then the dwarves started singing.

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,  
To dungeons deep and caverns old,  
We must away, ere break of day,  
To seek our pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,  
While hammers fell like ringing bells,  
In places deep, where dark things sleep,  
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord  
There many a gleaming golden hoard  
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught,  
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung  
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung  
The dragon-fire, on twisted wire  
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,  
To dungeons deep and caverns old,  
We must away, ere break of day,  
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves,  
And harps of gold, where no man delves  
There lay they long, and many a song  
Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the heights,  
The wind was moaning in the night,  
The fire was red, it flaming spread,  
The trees like torches blazed with light.

The bells were ringing in the dale,  
And men looked up with faces pale.  
The dragon's ire, more fierce than fire,  
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon.  
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.  
They fled the hall to dying fall  
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the Misty Mountains grim,  
To dungeons deep and caverns dim,  
We must away, ere break of day,  
To win our harps and gold from him!

As soon as they hit the fourth line Annis knew they were singing the version from the books, Peter Jackson's adherence to the time typically allotted a Hollywood film be damned. By the third stanza, Annis was laying back on the couch as if she were asleep, and Mari actually was asleep.

After the song, Kaitlyn turned to Mari, saw she was asleep, and reached over to poke Annis.

"Dude, wake up," accompanied the rough jab to the temle.

Which, of course, was responded to with a rather brutal smack and a growled, "I am awake, idiot." Annis stretched her legs out, nearly tripping Nori as he walked by in the process, then stood.

"Whatever, I want to sleep now, so I'm off to find a place."

"I concur, though I think you should share the couch with Mari here and I'll find a place. I'm not into the whole sharing thing, and I'm sure she won't be into it either when I kick her in the face in my sleep."

"No, I'm the one who's still fully grown! You share." Kaitlyn turned to walk away, only to be stopped by Annis making noises at her. "Now stop being like that, they're going to think you're weird. And you're the one who wanted to go on this quest anyhow." And just like that, Kaitlyn walked away. Annis simply pouted and flopped back onto the couch, where she turned her face into the pillows at the back and went to sleep with the echoes of the dwarves' song in her head.


End file.
